Friday, August 12, 2016

There are two screenings coming up of Graves of Arthur Kill, the excellent documentary that Will Van Dorp, the blogger at Tugster, and Greg Kane of 3 Fish Productions made about the Witte Marine Salvage Yard (better known to local paddlers as "The Staten Island Graveyard of Ships") a few years back. They'll be at the screening to answer questions afterwards - we had a similar screening with Q&A session at Sebago closer to when the film was first released, and it was a great evening, I really can't recommend this enough.

The first is this Saturday, August 13th, starting at 2:00 at the Staten Island Arts Culture Lounge at the St. George ferry terminal - click here for details. The second is next week Tuesday, August 16th, on board the lightship Nantucket in the Brooklyn Bridge Park - for this one, click here.

And as long as I'm talking about fun things to do - remember that time not to long ago when I went to go paddling and a square dance broke out? The same group that turned up at Sebago is participating in the Citi Summerstreets festival this Saturday, Megan and the gang will be doing some dancing themselves and leading square dances for anyone who wants to join in at the Uptown Stage at 51st and Park Avenue in Manhattan. They're on at 11:40 am, click here for all info.

It's an incredible place to visit. I think that of all the things that we make, boats are some of the ones that feel the most alive - you see them sagging and rusting and try to picture them is the days when they were cared-for and useful and it's just haunting. I actually took Will there by kayak because he's an excellent historian himself and has an enormous circle of readers who have their own sources, some from personal experience as professional mariners, some just from a similar fascination with old boats, and I had a feeling that taking Will there would unlock a lot of interesting stories about the vessels that are there. It worked out wonderfully, that was just one of the first histories in a whole chain that came up in the comments in the first Tugster post. The documentary was the most amzazing bonus result - I think Will had had some interest in doing something like that for some time, and then Greg ran across the photos Will had taken on that trip and the two gentlemen teamed up to make the film. I've always been absolutely tickled to have been the catalyst for that effort!